So the World Turned to Ash
by Jax Malcolm
Summary: Fifteen years after Ash Ketchum left Pallet Town to become a Pokemon master, the world turns to him once again to save it. However, things are different now. One shot, response to a prompt.


It had been fifteen years since Ash Ketchum first left the town of Pallet. He had returned many times since then, but it was always under better circumstances. Now, it was the only place in Kanto – and quite possibly the rest of the world – left standing. Its houses remained intact and many of its people, alive.

He passed his house on the way to his destination. Fond memories of sitting in front of the television and dreaming about being a Pokémon master entered his mind. He would have given anything to see his mother's smile again, but he knew that if he knocked on the door, no one would answer, not even Mr. Mime.

With a heavy sigh, he passed the white picket fence and turned his eyes to the rose-red sky. It was the color of sunsets, though Ash's shadow was short in the early afternoon sun. For one long year, it had been that way; for one long year, Ash had only Pikachu to keep him company. The mouse was now on his shoulder, resting before the rendezvous. She needed all the energy she could conserve, so Ash left her alone, despite his sudden loneliness.

May was gone, and so was her brother. It was a shame, though, since Ash had grown to like her. Nevertheless, she was among the first to go, swept away by a force even he didn't know.

Brock went next. That hurt especially since Brock was an older brother to Ash: the single man that once, on the edge of Vermilion City, for example, told him to think of his tired Pikachu above rushing into a Gym battle. Brock always nudged Ash to think. The older man was, put simply within a cliché, Ash's voice of reason.

When Ash went to Pewter City several months prior to the present, Brock was nowhere to be seen. Most of the family was gone, save for Brock's father, who was reduced to half-crazed whimperings. The most coherent sentence Ash managed to coax from the man was, "Don't let Them get me."

So Ash left him there to travel to Cerulean City. He knew all too well what Them entailed. He knew about Them. He had, contrary to what Eusine believed, even met Them somewhere in a distant past.

But that past was exactly what it was: past.

What he found in Cerulean City, however, would never stay past. It became his present, consuming his soul and heart with grief.

Misty was not there. He found her hair band and a small, black patch of dry blood at the bottom of the empty Gym pool. They had already been there.

So he had nothing left. His friends were gone. His family was gone. Even the girl he may have loved if he was given time was gone. They took them all. Each soul, whisked from the planet in a mass exodus of white spirits and whirring confusion.

Why was he still there?

It was the only question that throbbed through his mind as he made his way back to Pallet Town. Why him? He knew _what_ he had to do, but the _why_ was never clear. They wanted to talk to _him_; that much was all he knew. _He_ was the boy one of Them had chosen as their personal diplomat. Chosen by a personal appearance to his mortal eyes, no less.

Why him? Wasn't he a good boy? Didn't he always obey his mother (except for the part about changing his underwear every day)? Didn't he always do the right thing and put forth his best effort to thwart evil wherever it went? Why was he left to be punished with the burden of attempting to save a planet alone? Why couldn't he have his friends and family back with him to support him?

It was a long time since Ash Ketchum wanted to be hugged by his mother or wanted his hand to be held by the girl he loved, but at that moment, he trembled. His fingers felt cold, and nothing other than him moved down the town's streets. He was alone at a time he certainly didn't want to be.

Eventually, he found the place. It had been so long since he was last there, and his last visit had been one of pleasure. He was, after all, meeting an old friend. One that had fortunately died of a combination of a stroke and old age prior to everything.

Ash walked up the familiar steps in the hill, but when he got to the building at its peak, he walked around it. Even if he knocked, Tracey wouldn't be there either. Professor Oak's laboratory was empty. Tracey had joined the angels in the rapture. Oak was just dead.

Those lucky bastards.

With a shake of his head, Ash walked to the back of the laboratory and straight down to the vast, green fields of the research preserve. He was amazed at how empty it was. They had probably taken all of the Pokémon from it as well. Ash clenched his fists as a cold sweat began to coat his tanned skin.

The grass crunched beneath his feet. With each step towards the center of the field, the wind gradually slid into an eerie stillness. It smelled of electricity, but not of an elemental kind. Of an emotional kind. It tasted salty and metallic like blood.

It took awhile of walking, but soon, Ash stood in the center of the field. His dark eyes swept his surroundings but saw nothing unusual other than the lack of Pokémon. There simply was nothing but grass, trees, and the Pokémon laboratory.

"H-hello?" he said. "I'm here, just like you asked."

A red light shone on him. He looked up to see, in the red sky above him, a ball of light descending from the heavens. Within that light, he saw the silhouette of a bird – the first legendary Pokémon he had ever seen.

From this light, a voice came. It was soft and feminine and melodious, a sound produced by a wind chime tongue and glass teeth. It spoke a language Ash knew was ancient and foreign, but at the same time, he understood each and every word of it.

_Hello, Ash Ketchum,_ it said. _Thank you for coming._

Pikachu awoke on Ash's shoulder and looked towards the sky at the light. Ash could feel the slight shaking of the mouse, even through the padding his clothing provided.

"I want to know," Ash said, "why it has to be done."

_Because all things must end,_ the voice replied.

"I get that, but… Why now?"

Ash imagined that, in the short period of silence, the voice sighed.

It said, _It must be done now because there is no other time. The world needs to end to begin again. Your human evils have reached the utmost point. It has become uncontrollable. Even your efforts have failed._

"But I tried!" Ash protested. "And I can still stop Team Rocket! Just don't end the world! Please!"

The bird narrowed its eyes. _We are not referring to your "Team Rocket," Ash Ketchum. We are referring to the enslavement of our fellow creatures in what you call "Pokémon training." Few souls of your kind have attempted to attain a partnership of equality with the creatures they force to fight for them, and many more send their Pokémon out as soldiers marching against their initial will until they have no recollection of the fact that they do have a choice._

_We are referring to the lost innocence of your governments, of your elders, and of your League. We are referring to the use of Pokémon in war – the battles that were fought not with guns but instead with your fellow creatures until both Pokémon and men lay dead by your kind's doing. We are referring to the sin of your elders – the adultery you never realized existed in your own home and the lust of your best friend and the vanity and wrath harbored by your beloved. We are referring to your entire society – the moments, the greed, and the darkness you have refused to see. We are referring to the Seven Deadly Sins._

Ash stood in stunned silence. He didn't understand a word of what the bird was saying. Adultery? Lust? Vanity? Wrath? Even at twenty-five, he couldn't fathom the concept of such images. His friends and family were perfectly incapable of evils that could possibly be marked in the same books as those of Team Rocket.

"If you hate my friends and family and the rest of us so much," he asked slowly, "then why did you leave me?"

_Because,_ the voice said, _you, Ash Ketchum, still possess a pure heart. We hoped you, of all your kind, would be able to provide us with an appropriate defense for your world._

Ash stopped and thought. What could possibly be a good enough defense for his kind that such ancient and inhuman beings would be able to comprehend?

"If you destroy the world, you destroy all of the wild Pokémon in it too," he said. "If you don't destroy it, you give us all a second chance. I'll do my best to make the human race better morally and whatever else you want. I'll even die to make people realize how important this is. But please, don't destroy the world!"

There was a long pause. The light pulsated as the bird within flapped its wings quietly. Small flames danced off its feathers with each flap, and Ash and Pikachu stood nervously as the ancient Pokémon slowly turned the ideas over in its head.

_You provide an interesting argument,_ it said. _You do have a valid point, and we will see to it that the wild Pokémon will be saved._

Ash breathed a sigh of relief, but unfortunately, the Pokémon wasn't finished.

_But as for your terms, we reject them utterly. There is nothing to save with the human race and all of its Pokémon subjects. You cannot change them alone. Therefore, we will still sentence you and your kind and your Pokémon to death._

_Good bye, Ash Ketchum._

The bird's beak opened, and from it rang a loud cry. A shiver went down Ash's spine as he listened to the melody – a series of notes from an angry angel. With each trill, the fire on the bird's feathers grew. Pikachu's cheeks sparked with the preparation for a counterattack, though both Ash and she knew that it would be futile against a Pokémon this powerful.

Then all Ash knew was the roar of a fire in his ears and the intense heat against his skin and the pain of a brilliant light melting his eyeballs from their sockets. And then, all of it turned to cold, black nothingness.

So the world turned to ash, and all was silent.


End file.
